The present invention relates to voice mail communication, more particularly to the ability to provide the complete set of information, normally provided as xe2x80x98Caller IDxe2x80x99 information on the subscriber line, as an announcement accompanying a recorded voice mail message from the caller. For example, the voice mail system can obtain and announce the number and an associated name, with each voice mail message or for each call even if the caller did not leave a message.
Network-based voice mail service has become commonplace in business environments and is becoming an increasingly popular alternative to answering machines for residential telephone customers. A voice mail system is a specialized computer or set of interconnected computers. The voice is generally digitized, usually at a much lower rate than the 64 Kb/s encoding that the central offices of the telephone network use for voice traffic through the switched network. The digitized voice is stored in compressed form on a hard disk that maintains the voice mail operating system, system prompts, and greetings, and the messages themselves. A processor controls the compressing, storing, retrieving, forwarding and purging of files. A comprehensive review of exemplary voice mail systems and voice messaging systems is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,812,639 to Bartholomew et al.
Many voice mail systems today provide some information about the call with the stored audio signal. This voice mail identification is normally associated with the telephone number of the voice mail subscriber. As the ability to send return messages is a normal and expected attribute of voice mail communication, data message protocol provides for message headings to include both sending and receiving addresses. Thus, in conventional systems, the receiving voice mailbox typically gains access to the calling number information as part of its processing of each incoming call.
If received, the voice mail system stores the calling number and will announce that number to the subscriber during message retrieval and/or related mailbox access operations. The information may also be used to enable call-back to the party that left the message for the subscriber or for forwarding of a newly recorded message from the subscriber to a mailbox of the original calling party U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,432 to Wallace et al., for example, discloses a voice mail system with signaling connectivity to the interoffice signaling portion of the switched telephone network. This enables the voice mail system to query other network nodes, such as an end office switch or an intelligent signaling transfer point, to obtain routing information used to forward a reply message to an appropriate box of the original caller in a remote voice mail system.
However, the calling party information is not always available to the voice mail system. The information may be blocked, because of privacy concerns. More often, one of the carriers involved in delivering the call to the voice mail system does not have the capability, or for business reasons does not agree, to supply the calling party number to the serving end office switch. Hence, when the call comes in, the end office switch can not supply any such information to the voice mail system with the forwarded call. In many cases, a subscriber receives voice mail messages but receives no related network information about the calling party.
This situation can be a particularly bothersome where the voice mail message stored by the mail system is inadequate. The caller may have left an incomplete message, or the system may have received no audio message at all if the caller opted to hang-up quickly. A subscriber may find several xe2x80x98hang-upsxe2x80x99 recorded as messages in his or her voice mailbox with no attendant information about the calling party. As a result, the subscriber has no way to determine the nature of the calls or the identity of the callers for call-back or nuisance tracing purposes.
Caller identification or xe2x80x9ccaller IDxe2x80x9d is another increasingly popular telephone service. Caller ID is a telephone on-hook capability that provides a called party with information about the caller before the called party answers the incoming call. Conventionally, such information includes the date and time of the call and the caller""s telephone number. Essentially, the telephone network identifies the telephone number associated with the line or instrument used by the calling party and supplies the number and time to a display device at the called customer""s premises. Subscribers having integrated service digital network (ISDN) type service receive the caller ID data, for display at the time of an incoming call, in the form of a data message, which the end office switch transmits over the D-channel.
For analog telephone customers, however, existing caller ID utilizes in-band transmission technology similar to that described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,582,956 and 4,551,581 to Doughty. In such a system, the end office switch connected to the called party""s line transmits directory number data for the calling party""s telephone line as frequency shift keyed (FSK) data inserted in the silent interval between ringing signal pulses applied to the called party""s line. The receiving apparatus includes a line interface unit, a converter, a control circuit and a display unit. A frequency shift keyed (FSK) signal representing the special service information (e.g. date, time and number) is filtered from the ringing signals by the line interface unit. The converter detects the FSK signal and demodulates the special service information from the FSK signal. Following detection of the FSK signal, the control circuit receives and stores the information, for display and other purposes.
For several years, local telephone exchange carriers have offered an enhanced form of caller ID, sometimes referred to as xe2x80x9cCaller ID Deluxexe2x80x9d service. This enhanced service utilizes intelligent network type call processing to access a Line Information Database (LIDB) to translate the calling party""s directory number into corresponding name data. The end office switch forwards the name data and the normal caller ID telephone number, as an ISDN data message (D-channel) or as FSK encoded data inserted in the silent intervals between ringing signals.
The terminal devices for caller ID normally retain the information at least for some period of time. Hence, over time the terminal builds-up a list of several of the most recent numbers and possibly names for calling parties. If calls rolled-over into voice mail from a ring-no-answer at the subscriber station, the caller ID data is delivered to the terminal in the normal fashion, before the forwarding. Hence, the terminal stores the number and name data in its memory. The subscriber can review the list and use the data to call-back at a later time. The terminal does not receive the caller ID data if the line is busy, unless the subscriber also has call waiting deluxe service (name and number delivery during call waiting). In the normal busy situation or if the subscriber has selectively activated forwarding to voice mail, the central office switch redirects the call to the voice mail system without delivering any type of caller ID information to the subscriber""s equipment.
Even if received on a call that terminated in voice mail, the information stored in the caller ID terminal may not be easy to correlate with messages retrieved from voice mail or xe2x80x98hang-upxe2x80x99 calls. The subscriber reviewing the voice mail messages would need to concurrently scan through the list of caller IDs in the terminal device, to see if there was any corresponding data relating to the messages in his/her voice mailbox. This is often impractical and inconvenient, even if all the data is present in the caller ID terminal memory. Also, the subscriber may want to retrieve voice mail messages while away from home or office, in which case the caller ID terminal with the relevant data is not available for concurrent review.
It would be preferable to obtain information similar to caller ID with stored voice mail messages. Typically, when the switch forwards a call over a line to a voice mail system, the switch sends various call-related information over a parallel data link, such as a simplified message desk interface (SMDI) link. The switch, however, generates the SMDI data stream from other information about the call and does not specifically use the same information as used for caller ID service. Hence, the full caller ID information is not provided to the voice mail system if the switch serving the subscriber forwards a call to voice mail. The switch instead relies on the calling party information retained from the initial delivery of the call to that switch, and conventionally the switch delivers only that number to the voice mail system via the SMDI link. In particular, with existing technologies, the SMDI link data for a forwarded call will not include the name information from the LIDB database. Hence, the voice mail system does not receive the name information from the subscriber""s Caller ID Deluxe service, even though the subscriber has paid the carrier to receive that information.
Some voice mail systems have offered name information with voice mail messages. Most existing systems with this feature, however, provide the information only for intra-system calls, that is to say between parties on the same or interconnected voice mails systems. Essentially, such.systems rely on the fact that the caller is a subscriber using the same node or interconnected nodes as used by the called-party subscriber. Because the system already knows the identity the party normally associated with the calling station, from its internal information, the system can store that information for later presentation with the message at time of retrieval. This type of approach, however, does not work with the general case where the caller is not a subscriber to the same voice mail service and does not serve to extend the subscriber""s caller ID service to their associated voice mailbox.
There have been attempts to address these types of issues in some related areas. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,094,574 to Vance et al. discloses a paging system that provides caller identification to the pager. The system includes an IVR unit for prompting a caller to enter a call back number and a caller base number. The base number is a number associated with the identity of the caller, such as the caller""s home telephone number or main business telephone number. The paging system further includes a caller identification server for obtaining caller identification information from a telephone listing database, shown as the line identification database (LIDB) of the public switched telephone network. The paging system may perform various steps to determine caller identification from the caller""s base number, such as searching a reverse look-up telephone directory to obtain a name associated with the base telephone number. If the data is not available in the reverse directory, the system then queries the LIDB database for name information. Name and number information is transmitted to and displayed on the pager. One embodiment also offers an associated voice mail option in which the caller may store a message for later review/retrieval by the paged subscriber. However, the Vance et al. system relies on the pager display to provide the caller ID information, essentially analogous to display on a caller ID terminal. The voice message is referenced by a message number. Apparently, the caller ID is only sent to the pager, without storing the data in association with the voice message. Consequently, the subscriber must use the pager to obtain that information at the time of listening to playback of the message. Vance et al. did not recognize the desirability of listening to the caller ID data at the time of reviewing stored messages or at the time of listening to an actual message.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,857,013 to Yue et al. discloses an automatic personal number communications system for a roaming subscriber. The service routes calls to various destinations in the wireless domain as well as to landline telephone stations. Certain features of the overall service are implemented on a service circuit node interfaced with the public switched telephone network, to provide ancillary services such as voice mail with call-back and paging. The voice mail service provides the subscriber with the calling line number of the message source and with correlated information as to the identity of the source. Apparently, the platform receives the calling line number with any call routed to the platform, and records that number for any call resulting in a default to the internal voice mail service. The platform seeks a match of the calling line number to a listing in a reverse white pages directory, to provide the identity of the calling party. If there is no match, the system preferably requests the caller to record identification information, such as the name of the caller. The Yue et al. system is specially tailored to the follow-me type service through a combination of wireless and landline networks and does not provide service to general telephone network subscribers who happen to also subscribe to voice mail. Also, the Yue et al. system must have access to a separate reverse white pages directory, rather than utilizing the full available network information, such as used in a Caller ID Deluxe type name and number service.
Hence, there is an ongoing need for a technique to provide essentially the same data as caller ID to a voice mail system, to allow replay thereof during voice mailbox access by a subscriber. The necessary information should include name and telephone number of the calling party line or station. Also, there is a need for such information to be provided to the voice mail system on a consistent basis, where ever and when ever the network possesses the desired calling party information, whether or not the call originated at a station participating in the same voice mail service.
The inventive concepts alleviate the above noted problems with voice mail technology and address the stated need with regard to providing calling party information. The invention actually encompasses a number of techniques for supplying name and number information to a voice mail system from a telephone network, while processing of a forwarded call originally intended for a voice mail subscriber. In this manner, the voice mail system can stored the name and number type caller ID information in association with the subscriber""s voice mailbox. The system may store this information even if the caller does not actually deposit a voice mail message. Later, while the subscriber reviews the contents of his or her mailbox, the system offers one of several options for verbal announcement of the name and number information derived during the forwarded call.
Hence, one aspect of the invention relates to a method of providing voice mail service with automatic caller identification through a telephone network comprising a traffic network with a plurality of central office switching systems and an interoffice signaling network. The method involves detecting a need to forward a call intended for a voice mail subscriber to a voice mail system that provides a mailbox for the subscriber, identifying a telephone number associated with a calling station, and obtaining name information corresponding to the telephone number. Preferably, the name information is obtained from a line identification database, for example via the interoffice signaling network, although the invention encompasses several different techniques for obtaining the data from that database or a similar database.
In the inventive methodology, the network forwards the call to the voice mail system. The voice mail system receives the telephone number and the name information from the network and records the name and number in association with the voice mailbox of the subscriber. The stored telephone number and name information are converted to an audible announcement,.and the voice mail system transmits that announcement through the telephone network to the subscriber, during a review of contents of the voice mailbox by the subscriber.
Other aspects of the invention relate to specific networks and network components for implementing the inventive voice mail service with enhanced caller ID functions. Several different network embodiments are disclosed, some of which present additional unique features.
For example, in one embodiment, the switch detecting the need to forward the call obtains the name information from the network database, e.g. to provide that information in a caller ID transmission to the subscriber""s terminal equipment. However, when the call is forwarded to voice mail, the switch has retained the caller ID information including the name data, and the switch forwards that same data to the voice mail system with the forwarded call.
In an alternate embodiment, the voice mail system itself has interoffice signaling capability and preferably the ability to recognize triggers to initiate query procedures. In response to the forwarded call, for example, the voice mail system itself may launch the query to obtain the name information. The query may go to the line identification database. Alternatively, an intelligent implementation of a signaling transfer point may provide the desired data about the name associated with the calling party telephone number.
Additional objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following and the accompanying drawings or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.